Interning at The Aldridge Foundation

Phillip Ly, Intern

My experience working with Rod and the team has been.. well.. awesome. Over the course of three weeks I have worked on a number of different research projects including developing a programme model that would raise the aspirations of the young people at the DACA and Falmer academies (watch this space for future developments).

From the offset my internship has been challenging and rewarding, after a hand-shake that felt like Rod was out to break my hand when I arrived, I dove straight into my initial project analysing feedback on a website and collating it all into a document to be presented at a team meeting.

As my internship progressed, the role expanded into research into other charitable foundations, as well as other areas of entrepreneurialism, including research into speakers, venues and websites for the Academies Director. It would have been nice to work more closely on projects other members of staff working on, but I guess in the time I had it wasn’t going to be possible to do everything.  Personally, I’ve been able to get some valuable research done for my dissertation (!!). 

But more importantly, I have had a chance to get a real feel for what the Aldridge Foundation want to do and the space they work in within the charitable sector – in a small way I’ve made a contribution to make society a better place... feels pretty damn good. I’ve been assured that the research I’ve done will not be lost into the ether either, and I can’t wait to see some of these (secret) projects develop in the future.

So, overall it’s been a brilliant internship and I think there’s been benefits for both parties (if anything McDonalds have gained though me eating there 3 times a week and I’m still 1 ticket away from 500k)...here’s hoping to a successful future at the AF!